The London Screenwriters’ Festival is over and all I have to show for it is sleep deprivation, a pocket full of other people’s business cards and a devastated bank balance.

Actually, I came away with a lot more.

What have I learned? Well, writers really, really, REALLY like hats.

And I met and caught up with so many smart, funny, kind, passionate people. I’m always staggered by the sense of camaraderie and friendship at these events. There are very few moments in our lives when you can just walk up to a complete stranger and say “Hi! I’m Dave!” without them backing away in a blind panic. (Though, it helps if your name is actually Dave).

Oh, and I *ahem* also picked up a shiny, shiny award:

How awesome is that?!

“It goes with your shiny, shiny head!” the Better Half told me.

I think I may have worked out why writers like hats.

Congratulations also to the other screenplay award winner Milethia and Anil, who picked up the film-makers’ award. It couldn’t have happened to two nicer, more talented people.

So, a big thank you to Chris Jones (Again, just a lovely, lovely human being) and all the crew that made the festival possible.

What am I going to do next? I think it’s time to pull a short screenplay out of the drawer, dust it off and go and shoot it. As Chris Jones said “Be heroic. If it doesn’t terrify you, it’s just going down the road to get a pint of milk.” 

Do I have any regrets? One. I was stood in a queue for coffee and Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish were stood next to me, within touching distance. “Should I be the arsehole who asks for a photo? No. Everyone else seems to be playing it cool. I should too.”

I then told this, frankly rubbish, anecdote to several people. Who then showed me their pictures of them stood with Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish.

Bugger.

On the Saturday evening, I managed to sneak the Better Half into a drinks party. “I’ve never been in a room with so many geeks,” she whispered. And I thought “Yeah. These are my people.”

See you in 2012.

Remember how there was a film-making contest based on the winning scripts?

Well, click here to gaze in wonder at the entries.

Twenty three bad boys to point your eyes at. I’m completely stunned by the different tones, styles and themes people have brought to the ‘Everything You Need’ party.

A mahoosive thank you and congratulations to all the casts and crews who took my witterings and made Awesomeness with a side order of Epic from them. You’re all winners.

And to everyone going to the London Screenwriters’ Festival, if you see me wandering around Regents College, slack-jawed and befuddled, please come and say hello. It’ll be lovely to see you x

Bizarrely and brilliantly, my entry ‘Everything You Need’ (jointly) won. Aside from my Blue Peter badge, I’ve never won anything in my life. I can only hope the prize money comes on a big novelty cheque to make everything complete.

I very nearly didn’t enter. I didn’t hear about the contest until the day before the deadline. The idea for the script had popped into my head fully formed, but I didn’t have any time to sit down and write it. So I went to bed thinking “Oh well, I’ll go to the festival next year”.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about the story. After staring at my ceiling for an age, I left the Better Half sleeping and crept out of the bedroom. I typed the script out, a stream of consciousness in the streetlight glow of a midnight suburbia, hit ‘send’ and finally managed to sleep.

But this isn’t the end of the story of ‘Everything You Need’. No, siree.

Now the One Minute Movie Competition starts.

Shoot my script and win stuff.

The judges include Paul Greengrass and Russell Mulcahy.

Yes. You read that right. Paul Greengrass and Russell Mulcahy. The directors of the Bourne sequels and ‘Highlander’.

BLOODY HIGHLANDER.

(I make no secret of the fact that I regard ‘Highlander’ as one of the landmarks of modern cinema).

So, what are you waiting for?

Here’s a copy of my script to download:

Everything You Need

I can’t wait to see what you incredibly talented lot come up with.

There are some jokes about sloths. How many websites can claim that? Apart from SlothJokes.com. If you have a couple of minutes, why not have a read? And then stick a link on Facebook/Twitter/Google+/Your blog/Scribble the URL on a toilet wall? I’ll buy you a puppy*.

Hahahah! Stick a link on Google+. See? I’m funny.

Thanks. You’re still my favourite.

*Offer of Puppy Purchase May Not Be Honoured.

As Kids A-C have grown older, it has become important for boundaries to be established. My research (Googling ‘If you can hear me, help me Supernanny’) shows that parents should be creating some ‘House Rules’ to be followed.

I have provided the rules I have come up with. Please feel free to help yourself to them and you too will be able to live in the Orwellian state of fear, obedience & silence that I currently enjoy.

Look, it doesn’t mean I love you any less.

It’s called The Death Guide To Life and you can find it here.

The plan is to group together articles that answer all the Big Questions that Death can help with. They’ll then be put together, expanded upon and published in a book in some way or another.

I would be very grateful if you could pop over, please, have a look and – if the mood takes you – subscribe to it in one of the many ways available to you. Or stick it in your blog roll. Or grab strangers in the street, shake them and shout “Go and read The Death Guide To Life!!!’

Thanks.

Love

Dave x

11th August 2011

Before Twitter and Facebook, you’d come up with a joke about a current event and think “Hmmm. Too soon?”. Now, you come up with a joke and think “Hmmm. Too late?”

I’m still not sure whether the world is ready for that Queen Mum reference, though.

Well, you’ll be happy/unhappy/ambivalent to know that the Death Twitter account reached its target of 20,000 followers last week and is still growing. I’ll be lying if I said I wasn’t grinning like an idiot when it happened. Thank you one and all. Work on the book proposal is in full swing so – ahem – if you’re a publisher, why not get in touch?

It’s my birthday on Friday and I’m immersed in the annual re-evaluation of my life. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’d rather like to work in the digital arena full time. It’s at times like this that I remember what my father once told me – “Get out of my house!”

Then I remember another time when he told me something more useful. “If you don’t ask, you don’t get”.

Before my English reserve kicks in, let’s run through what my online work has achieved.

Army of Dave has appeared on the websites of BBC News, The Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, and the Times. It was named one of the top 10 UK Comedy Blogs by Cision Media and FHM magazine featured it as a “Website They Quite Like”. I’ve worked with PR companies on digital marketing campaigns and my attempt to sell the entire universe on eBay received over 21,000 hits in 24 hours.

The @Its_Death Twitter account has appeared in ‘Easy Living’ magazine and on the websites of the International Business Times, Metro, Forbes and Time magazine. And sold quite a few tee shirts.

So, a readership of thousands and international media coverage. Imagine what I could do if someone paid me a salary and gave me a marketing budget…

If you think you can help and want to find out what I’ve also been doing professionally for the last 15 years, please click on the ‘Contact Dave’ tab above or email me at info@armyofdave.com and I can provide you with my full CV.

And I always get the coffee and tea in.

Thanks

All the best

Dave

And pictures of cats in people clothes.  

 So I’ve had an idea for the perfect social networking site. HowlsOfImpotentRage.com.

 You don’t “tweet” or “update” or “finger your ring” (or whatever the hell you do on Google+). You “scream into the ether”.

 I’ve made a mock up of what I envision a typical page (or “Procrastination Station”) to look like. Obviously, the default font is Comic Sans. Just to get the bile rising the second you load up your account.

It’ll  make millions.

Sorry.

The Death Twitter Project is going very well. We even – bizarrely – have tee shirts. When I started it in September last year as a research project, I had a fanciful notion of reaching an arbitrary figure of 20,000 followers within 12 months. Death’s follower count currently stands at 19,373.

I’m just a bloke with an unfulfilling office job who likes writing jokes so I find this figure mad and lovely and exciting and I’m grateful to every last one of you who takes time out to read my brain vomit. Even the spambots.

Actually, it’s my birthday on the 12th August. If we could *ahem* reach that arbitrary figure by then, that would be awesome. Thanks.

But enough pathetic attempts to beg for more followers to feed my ego and fill the void where my soul used to be while I wait for Apple to release a new product. What’s Death been up to in the past 10 months?

Tom Cox wrote about Death in ‘Easy Living’ magazine in an article about ‘Funny People to Follow On Twitter’.

Impressive company, I think you’ll agree.

Weirdly, Death made the International Business Times when he was rude about Mick Jagger while a rumour that he’d died swept the interweb.

Death made the top spot in a Forbes magazine list! Disappointingly, it was not the Forbes Rich List, but a list entitled ‘The Top 3 Haters of Coldplay’s New Song’.

If you knew how much I hate Coldplay, you’d understand that topping this list comes pretty close to topping the Rich List.

And this morning, I woke up to this on the Time Magazine website.

Time Magazine? Bwah! Ha! Ha!

The campaign to make Death ‘Time Magazine Demon of the Year’ starts here.

So, what have I done with these pages of esoteric jokes about ‘Schrodinger’s Deal or No Deal’ (“24 boxes. All of which may or may not contain dead cats.”), Sartre’s confusion over Jaffa Cakes and life lessons such as:

?

I’ve finished a script for a pilot episode for a Death sitcom that I’ve just sent off to my agent for him to weep over and, along with every other writer of a Twitter joke account, I’m – unsurprisingly – sketching out ideas for a book.

So, thanks to everybody who’s joined in with the jokes and who knows where we go from here…?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and take some more painkillers, rub my tooth with ointment and longingly eye up some pliers….